Are smarter people’s brain’s different?

Are smarter people’s brain’s different?

The short answer is Yes. People vary in their intelligence, so how else could we account for this if not for differences in the structure or function of the brain? Exactly what those differences are is a matter of intense investigation.

Larger brains and IQs

People with larger brains do tend to have higher IQs ( intelligence quotients), but it is not just a matter of size. The brain is made up of grey matter and white matter.Grey matter is made up of the main bodies of neurons, whereas white matter is made up of the fibres down which they send signals.

Grey and white brain matter

Rogier Kevitt at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit In Cambridge, has found that the volume of grey matter in the frontal lobe is connected to fluid intelligence, which is the ability to solve new problems. He also found that this was linked to the amount of white matter connections between the 2 halves of the prefrontal part of the brain.

Brain areas and Intelligence

By examining how parts of the brain became activated during cognitive tasks, German scientists identified a network connecting 20 different areas in the frontal and parietal regions that were associated with intelligence.

People with more grey matter or higher neural activity in these regions were smarter.

The deep folds in the grey matter on the surface of the brain increase its surface area, bringing cells closer together and allowing them to communicate faster.

The extent of this folding is linked with speed of thought and working memory; smarter people have more- folded brains.

Brain of a genius

This inert lump was a piece of Einstein’s brain, the man responsible for revolutionising physics and revealing the mysteries of space.

It was indisputably the brain of a genius.

When examined by pathologist Tom Harvey at Princeton University Medical centre, there appeared to be no special distinguishing features.

However, it was suggested that his genius arose from extra interconnections between his brain cells and the processes that occurred when he was alive.

Susan Greenfield Brain Story 2000

The Brain

What happens when we think ?

Thinking

Our every thought- whether about a simple object or an abstract idea- is the result of electrical signals pulsing through the brain’s network of 86 billion neurons.

Thinking and brain activity

The latest neurological studies show that even a basic thought involves a surprising amount of activity, with different brain areas firing up and sending information to others, and certain “hub” regions directing the traffic.

Brain areas and recall

American scientists at the University of California studied the brain areas involved in recalling and saying a word and found that several different areas showed activity. This started in the visual and auditory cortices, then the prefrontal cortex, including areas where memories are stored, and finally the motor cortex for the spoken response.

Are you really right brained or left brained ?

What are you?

Do you think of yourself as

A) Rational and logical ? (left brain)B) Or creative and free spirited ? (right brain)

Myth busting

Although this concept is appealing, it is also a complete myth. How did this myth arise?In the 1960’s we discovered that certain functions occur solely on one side of the brain. Most people process language in the left hemisphere, whereas our emotions are dealt with on the right.

Left and right brained

It was soon said that our left hemisphere held a monopoly over the virtues of logic reason and language, whereas the right side of the brain was responsible for driving our emotions, musicality and impulsiveness. From this came the popular maxim that whichever side of your brain dominated, determined your personality.

Left and right brained

The reality is more complex. For example, although your left hemisphere produces complex speech, the right allows you to understand the emotional and semantic meaning of those words ; it gives you some linguistic finesse.Creative thought activates a widespread network of cells that are spread across both hemispheres.

Brain dominance

Also there is no evidence that one side of the brain dominates. A study done at the University of Utah which scanned the brains of more than 1,000 people while they performed various tasks, showed that no one revealed a dominance for using one side of their brain over the other.

Hemispheres

• There are 2 cerebral hemispheres, left and right.

• These are connected at the base of the corpus callosum by a bundle of nerve fibres about 10cm long.

• These fibres enable communication between the hemispheres.

Left hemisphere of the brain of Charles Babbage, the English mathematican (1792- 1871)

Does the gut influence the brain?

What do you think? Yes or No?

Bacteria in the gut

“ Microbes can produce almost every neurotransmitter in the brain. In recent years bacteria in the gut have been implicated in a range of conditions that affect mood, especially depression and anxiety. The good news is that bacteria don’t just make you feel low; the right ones can also improve your mood.” New Scientist September 2019

Bacteria in the gut 2That has an intriguing implication; one day we may be able to manipulate the microbes living within our gut to change our mood and feelings. These new findings challenge the whole idea of mental illness being caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, and offer an alternative to drug treatment. You’ve probably heard of priobiotics, but these are their new incarnation- psychobiotics.

Processing emotions

Tillisch and Mayer, two researchers at the University of California, found that they can influence the way people process emotions by using probiotics. They gave 36 healthy women probiotic yoghurt containing 4 types of bacteria twice daily for 4 weeks.

Processing emotions

Brain scans revealed that this affected the activity and physical connectivity in the emotion centres of the women’s brains, producing changes associated with healthier emotional processing. Ingesting microbes may even help people at risk of depression and anxiety.

What makes some brains more resistant to decline?

Age and cognitive abilities

It is a harsh fact of life: as you get older, your cognitive abilities start to wane. But why is it that some people reach a ripe old age with little more than the odd “senior moment”, while others have far greater mental decline?

Brain shrinkageThe brain starts shrinking around the age of 40, with cells deteriorating most quickly in the frontal lobe, the striatum and the hippocampus- areas involved in most complex thoughts, movement and memory.

How resistant you are to the effects of this decline is likely to be associated with your cognitive reserve. This is a kind of mental buffer that allows your brain to sustain more damage before you notice changes in your cognition.

The shrinking brain

The brain decreases in volume in later life; in old age we lose between 0.5 and 1% of our brain tissue each year ( Jackson and Owsley 2003).

This loss is not uniform across the brain: there is greater loss in the frontal and temporal regions of the cortex. In general , the more brain tissue that is lost, the greater the intellectual decline in old age.

Cognitive reserve This is a kind of mental buffer that allows your brain to sustain more damage before you notice changes in your cognition.Cognitive reserve isn’t just down to someone having more neurons than another person, but also to how well their neurons engage with each other across different networks in the brain.

Compensation This allows the brain to compensate when age related decline occurs , or disease takes hold, and helps to reroute information so that the brain can continue to work normally.

Our environment can also influence cognitive reserve. A high level of education offers one of the biggest boosts, whereas obesity and insulin resistance seems to lower it. Several genes also us help to resist cognitive decline.

Brain shrinkage Brain shrinkage over time sounds bleak, but there is some good news. Although most of our brain cells are created soon after birth, we can make certain types of neurons even into our 90’s. This ability might go some way to explaining why some people’s brains fare better against the ravages of old age.

How to boost your cognitive reserve• Continue to educate yourself throughout your life.

This appears to provide one of the biggest benefits.• Play a musical instrument• Socialise• Getting the right amount of sleep• Speaking more than one language

All of the above points also help

Exercise and the brainDon’t put your feet up for too long though; the adage “healthy body healthy mind” turns out to be true.“ If you’re looking to maintain brain health , you need to exercise,” says Steve Harridge, director of the Centre for Human and Applied physiological Sciences at Kings College London. Regular workouts bring about significant improvements in memory, attention, processing speed and executive functions such as planning and multitasking.

Physical differences in the brain as you age

Women tend to lose tissue in the hippocampus and parietal areas. These are more concerned with memory and visuo- spatial abilities, so women are more likely to have difficulty remembering things and finding their way about as they age as they age.

Physical differences in the brain as you age

Men are particularly prone to tissue loss in the frontal and temporal lobes.

These areas are concerned with thinking and feeling, and loss of tissue from them is likely to cause irritability and other

personality changes.

A Frontal lobeB Temporal lobeC Parietal lobe D Occipital Lobe

Which areas shrink?

•Raz et al (2005) measured volumes of 12 regions of interest:

•All except visual cortex declined significantly over 5 years

CerebellumCaudate

HippocampusLateral prefrontal cortex

Inferior parietal lobeOrbito frontal cortex

Inferior temporal cortexFusiform cortex

Prefrontal white matterInferior parietal white matter

Entorhinal cortexVisual cortex

5-year volume change (effect size)

0 0.28 0.55 0.83 1.1

“the human brain starts to shrink around the age of forty”

Declining mental ability

“ While mental ability does decline, on average , with age in a healthy person, some decline is avoidable and the extent of any change that does occur is generally less than popularly believed.” Saga Magazine

“Even if the processing speed of an older brain is slower, its strengths are the benefit of acquired knowledge, experience and technique.Two of the exhibitions I found it hardest to get tickets for recently were the David Hockney at the Royal Academy and the Matisse cutouts at the Tate. Both artists produced startling work in their later years.”

Ian Deary Director of the Centre for Cognitive Ageing Edinburgh University

Is cognitive decline a myth?

Dr Michael Ramscar leads a research team at Tubingen university in Germany, and he makes the startling claim that cognitive decline is a myth.

So how does he explain the difficulty many older people have in remembering names , or recalling a particular word?

As we age, he says, we accumulate more and more knowledge, and so, when the brain wants to extract a piece of information, it has a greater quantity of memorised information to search through.

The hippocampal part of the brain plays a key part in memory.

Final note I hope that you’ve learnt at least one thing about the brain from this session.Although a certain amount of brain decline may be due to ageing, there are ways to minimise this by keeping as active as possible and exercising your brain.

Next meeting

The final meeting of the group for this year will be on Tuesday 12th November at 2.00 p.m here. The topic will be :“ What do you know about psychology?”

Wonders of The Brain

This session will cover:Brain basics Development of the brain Regions of the brain:Cortex Cerebral Hemispheres Lobes Measuring brain activityBrain problems